African American Museum, Dallas will reopen May 1 with new exhibitions

The African American Museum, Dallas has announced it will reopen on May 1 following extensive facility improvements, including HVAC upgrades, floor repairs, and technological enhancements. The reopening will be marked by the debut of a major exhibition titled "People Who Make the World Go ‘Round: The Legacy of Sepia Magazine," which showcases over 40,000 images from the museum’s archives featuring Black icons like Aretha Franklin and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Vantaa Art Museum Artsi's exhibition Empathy explores the multilayered nature of emotion, power, and connection

The Vantaa Art Museum Artsi has launched "Empathy," a multifaceted exhibition exploring the psychological, social, and technological dimensions of emotional connection. The show features diverse works that examine how facial expressions and gestures communicate feelings, while also addressing the power dynamics of who is allowed to tell their story. A central highlight is Ali Akbar Mehta’s immersive installation, which utilizes an archive of 30,000 video clips and XR technology to analyze how digital algorithms and visual overexposure to violence affect human compassion.

Richard Hunt Legacy Foundation Releases First Posthumous Artist's CV

The Richard Hunt Legacy Foundation has released the first comprehensive posthumous CV for the pioneering American sculptor Richard Hunt. Drawing from digital archives and research, the document reveals a career far more expansive than previously recorded, documenting 193 solo exhibitions and over 350 group shows across seven decades. This release follows the 2022 acquisition of Hunt’s massive physical archive by the Getty Research Institute, which continues to process over 1,000 linear feet of historical material.

Lucas Museum of Narrative Art reveal inaugural exhibition schedule

The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art (LMNA) has announced its inaugural exhibition schedule, curated by founder George Lucas himself. Opening on September 22, the museum will feature over 30 galleries and more than 1,200 works, exploring human history and the human condition through narrative art forms including illustration, sequential art, and cinema. The exhibitions will showcase production designs, props, and costumes from the Lucas Archives, alongside works by iconic artists such as Frank Frazetta, Boris Vallejo, Maxfield Parrish, N.C. Wyeth, Beatrix Potter, Jack Kirby, Alison Bechdel, Frank Miller, and Mœbius, spanning adventure, fantasy, sci-fi, children's literature, and comics.

The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art Announces First Exhibitions Curated by George Lucas

The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, set to open on September 22, 2026, in Los Angeles's Exposition Park, has announced its inaugural exhibition schedule curated by George Lucas. The museum will showcase a wide range of narrative art, from Americana works by Thomas Hart Benton and Norman Rockwell to documentary photography by Gordon Parks, Dorothea Lange, and Robert Capa, as well as public murals by Diego Rivera and Judith F. Baca. The collection also includes production designs, props, and costumes from the Lucas Archives, alongside illustrations by Frank Frazetta, Maxfield Parrish, and N.C. Wyeth, children's literature art by Beatrix Potter and Jacob Lawrence, and comics and manga by Jack Kirby, Alison Bechdel, and Mœbius.

Maison Margiela Opens "Tabi: Collectors Exhibition" in Chengdu, China

Maison Margiela has launched the “Tabi: Collectors Exhibition” at The Third Avenue Art Museum in Chengdu, China, running from April 9 to April 13, 2026. This immersive showcase features the personal archives of nine global collectors, including artist Theaster Gates and musician Zion.T, alongside a curated selection of the house’s own historical footwear dating back to 1989. The event is a key component of the brand's "MaisonMargiela/folders" initiative, which includes a series of regional activations across China and a digital open-source archive.

A JOURNEY THROUGH LATIN AMERICAN PHOTOGRAPHY AND A REFLECTION ON THE ROLE OF COLLECTING

The Miraflores Palace of Arts (PLAM) in Lima is hosting "A Collection Is a Desire," a major exhibition featuring over 100 works from the Jan Mulder Collection. This presentation is an expanded version of a landmark 2012 showcase at the Rencontres d'Arles, which was the first time a private Latin American photography collection was featured at the prestigious French festival. The exhibition includes works by iconic figures such as Martín Chambi, Graciela Iturbide, and Vik Muñiz, spanning various periods and geographical contexts.

MARILYN BOROR BOR, SEBA CALFUQUEO, JULIETH MORALES. PERFORMANCE Y DISIDENCIAS

On April 18, 2026, the performance cycle "Atravesar el lago" (Crossing the Lake) took place in open spaces of Casa del Lago UNAM in Chapultepec Park, curated by Adonay Bermúdez. Artists Marilyn Boror Bor, Seba Calfuqueo, and Julieth Morales activated performances that destabilize dominant knowledge frameworks and confront narratives imposed by colonial modernity. Boror Bor's "Lo que el cemento no puede cubrir" turned the body into a living archive summoning ancestral memories; Calfuqueo's "Guardo mis semillas para el futuro" opened fissures in imposed borders; and Morales's "Enchumbarnos: Cuerpo, Norma y Territorio. Ritual para dos cuerpos" configured a threshold of listening and transformation. The article includes a curatorial text fragment exploring water as a dissident force, drawing on Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui's thought.

Annalee Davis at the 2026 Venice Art Biennale. Landscape as mourning, archive and resistance in the Barbados Pavilion

Annalee Davis alla Biennale Arte di Venezia 2026. Il paesaggio come lutto, archivio e resistenza nel Padiglione Barbados

Annalee Davis, an artist from Barbados, will represent her country at the 2026 Venice Biennale with an installation titled "Let this be my Cathedral" within the exhibition "In Minor Keys." The work addresses ecological grief, colonial memory, and the possibility of care without erasing conflict, using suspended plants and organic materials to create a threshold where loss, vulnerability, and wonder remain in tension. Davis discusses the influence of curator Koyo Kouoh, whose vision shaped the Biennale, and the importance of research as an integral part of her artistic process.

Nasce a Londra il Quentin Blake Centre: spazio creativo dedicato al disegno e all’illustrazione

The Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration will open in May 2026 in London's Clerkenwell district, housed in the historic New River Head waterworks complex after a £12.5 million restoration led by Tim Ronalds Architects. The centre will preserve Sir Quentin Blake's archive of over 40,000 works and feature a library, public gardens, creative labs, and three inaugural exhibitions: "Quentin Blake: Performance," "Queer as Comics" celebrating LGBTQIA+ comics, and "MURUGIAH: Ever Feel Like…" by British-Sri Lankan illustrator Murugiah.

Trees are a model to follow: A festival in Modena confirms it

Gli alberi sono un modello da seguire. A Modena c’è un festival che lo conferma

The Alberi Festival in Modena transforms the Villaggio Artigiano Ovest into an open-air laboratory focused on the intersection of botany, architecture, and urban planning. Inspired by the seminal 1960s research of Cesare Leonardi and Franca Stagi, the event features exhibitions, installations, and discussion tables centered around the "Officina Botanica," an experimental green regeneration project housed in a former industrial warehouse.

In Rome, the major company Acea launches its Foundation for art and culture: The interview

A Roma la grande azienda Acea lancia la sua Fondazione per l’arte e la cultura. L’intervista

The Italian multi-utility giant Acea has officially launched the Acea Foundation, signaling a shift from being a mere cultural sponsor to an active producer and curator of cultural projects. Central to this initiative is the Acea Heritage Museum, which showcases the company’s 117-year history through a massive 12km historical archive and a rediscovered art collection valued at two million euros. The foundation aims to integrate art into corporate spaces, including a dedicated contemporary art section in its foyer and a focus on site-specific works by artist Gino Marotta.

Sound Archives Open in Ravenna: The Best of National and International Performing Arts Now Available

A Ravenna aprono gli Archivi Sonori: a disposizione il meglio delle arti performative nazionali e internazionali

The city of Ravenna has officially inaugurated the Archivi Sonori (Sound Archives) at Palazzo Malagola, a new international center dedicated to vocal and sonic research. Founded by actress Ermanna Montanari and scholar Enrico Pitozzi, the archives offer public access to a vast collection of audio and video materials documenting the experimental work of 33 influential Italian and international performers, including Demetrio Stratos, Joan La Barbara, and Alvin Curran. The facility features specialized listening and viewing rooms, including an immersive sonic chamber and a cinema hall, all navigated via touchscreens featuring anatomical heart motifs designed by artist Stefano Ricci.

Inside a Black Panther Family Album

Scholar Leigh Raiford examines the personal family archives of Black Panther Party leaders Kathleen and Eldridge Cleaver, specifically focusing on photographs taken during their period of exile in the 1970s. The analysis centers on how domestic objects, such as a zebra-print carver chair and various African artifacts, transitioned from private household items to iconic symbols of Black Power and cultural nationalism in the public sphere.

Saad Khan Archives the Detritus of Censored Culture

Saad Khan, a New York-based archivist, has developed Khajistan, an expansive digital and physical archive dedicated to preserving censored and overlooked mass media from South Asia to the Maghreb. The collection features a diverse array of ephemera, including homoerotic imagery, working-class street posters, and banned magazines that are often erased from official cultural records. By documenting everything from WhatsApp forwards to vintage film posters, Khan creates a space where the lived experiences of queer, trans, and working-class individuals in these regions are validated and archived.

USC Fisher Museum welcomes the National Archives’ Freedom Plane National Tour

The USC Fisher Museum of Art has welcomed the "National Archives’ Freedom Plane National Tour," a traveling exhibition featuring foundational American documents. Arriving via a specially branded Boeing 737 at Van Nuys Airport, the collection includes rare items such as a 1823 Stone engraving of the Declaration of Independence, the Treaty of Paris, and a secret printing of the Constitution. USC is the only university selected as a stop on this eight-city tour, which commemorates the upcoming 250th anniversary of the United States.

Writer Thomas Clerc casts a tender fictional gaze on Montmartre's 'daubs'

L’écrivain Thomas Clerc pose, à travers une fiction, un regard tendre sur les « croûtes » de Montmartre

French writer and essayist Thomas Clerc has published a new fiction titled "Croûtes" as the fifteenth volume in the "Fléchette" collection by éditions sun/sun. The book draws inspiration from a single autochrome image taken from the Musée Albert-Kahn's "Archives de la planète" (1909–1931), specifically a one-minute film shot in March 1927 at the Foire aux croûtes in Montmartre, Paris. Clerc's narrative tenderly and humorously explores the life of an amateur painter and the infinite possibilities of so-called "croûtes"—a French slang term for amateurish or kitsch paintings that exist outside institutional recognition.

Printing the Unprinted: The Reversal of World Discovery

The Indonesian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale presents "Printing the Unprinted: The Reversal of World Discovery," a project that reimagines global history by casting an Indonesian kingdom as the explorer who discovers the West. Seven Indonesian artists—Agus Suwage, Syahrizal Pahlevi, Nurdian Ichsan, R.E. Hartanto, Theresia Agustina Sitompul, Mariam Sofrina, and Rusyan Yasin—participated in a two-month residency at the Scuola Internazionale di Grafica in Venice, collaboratively creating works through printmaking and expanded forms. The pavilion includes exhibitions, workshops, and symposiums that challenge dominant narratives and highlight Indonesia's contributions to maritime technology, commerce, arts, and knowledge.

Echoes of Memory and Quiet Revolutions

The Henrike Grohs Art Award concludes its final edition, naming Tanzanian artist Rehema Chachage as the 2026 laureate. Chachage, who works across performance, video, text, scent, and installation, creates a "performative archive" in collaboration with her mother and grandmother, transforming personal and ancestral memory into shared sensory experiences. The two finalists are Younès Ben Slimane, a Tunisian filmmaker and visual artist whose silent, disorienting works challenge cinematic narrative structures, and Egyptian artist Rania Atef, whose participatory practice turns domestic spaces into stages for revealing power dynamics. The award received over 600 applications from more than 30 African countries.

NAFRICA–MASCHERE: The Mask Strikes Back

Curator Simon Njami discusses his exhibition 'NAFRICA–MASCHERE' at the Museo e Real Bosco di Capodimonte, which juxtaposes the fascist anthropological archives of Lidio Cipriani with contemporary artworks. The show utilizes the metaphor of the mask to explore the tension between how individuals are perceived and how they project themselves, specifically addressing the persistence of colonial logic in the modern world. By including artists from Africa, America, and Italy, Njami seeks to move beyond a binary 'colonizer vs. colonized' narrative toward a broader inquiry into human representation and power.

SILENCE HAS MATTER ETHIOPIA BRINGS THE WORK OF TEGENE KUNBI TO THE VENICE BIENNALE

The Ethiopia Pavilion at the 61st Venice Biennale presents "Shapes of Silence," an exhibition by artist Tegene Kunbi, curated by Abebaw Ayalew, running from May 9 to November 22, 2026, at Palazzo Bollani. The show marks the culmination of Kunbi's thirty-year practice, exploring silence as a social and political condition through abstraction, textiles, and assemblage, drawing on Ethiopian folkloric traditions and material histories.

In My Place in My Time: Brian Tripp Archive Exhibition – 2 Upcoming Events

Cal Poly Humboldt's Reese Bullen & Goudi’ni Native American Arts Galleries will present "In My Time, In My Place: Brian Tripp Archive," an exhibition exploring the late Karuk artist Brian D. Tripp's (1945–2022) use of personal texts, symbols, and geometric language. The show runs April 2 through May 16, 2026, featuring reproduced archival materials from Tripp's papers held in the Cal Poly Humboldt Library Special Collections. Two related events are scheduled: an Artist on Artist Talk with Bob Benson on April 29 and an Archivist Talk with Susan Gehr and Carly Marino on May 7.

Dive into an immersive spring experience at a local art gallery

The Bank of Art Gallery in Brazil, Indiana, is launching an immersive spring-themed exhibition titled "Bloom/Hum/Glow." Featuring the work of seven artists, the show transforms the gallery space into a sensory meadow through a combination of glasswork, floral prints, and a unique sound installation. A central highlight is a haptic audio experience by artist Kevin Naylor that replicates the vibrations and sounds of a beehive, allowing visitors to feel as though they are enveloped within a hive.

Auction of Diane Keaton’s Collection Includes Art, Fashion, and Personal Treasures from Decades on Film

Bonhams auction house is conducting a series of sales of actress Diane Keaton's personal collection, titled "Diane Keaton: The Architecture of an Icon." The main in-person auction will be held at Bonhams' New York flagship on June 8, preceded by exhibitions in Los Angeles and New York, and accompanied by three online auctions focusing on her fashion, home decor, and personal objects.

Dallas' African American Museum reopens with iconic Sepia photo exhibit

The African American Museum in Dallas reopens on May 1 after temporary renovations, featuring the exhibition "People Who Make the World Go ‘Round: The Legacy of Sepia Magazine." The show highlights influential Black icons such as Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, Maya Angelou, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and Thurgood Marshall through photographs from the museum's archive of over 40,000 images. Sepia magazine, founded in Fort Worth in 1946, chronicled Black life and culture for nearly four decades, offering a Southern perspective that rivaled national publications like Ebony and Jet.

In Conversation: Jen Everett and Dr. Blair Ebony Smith

Interdisciplinary St. Louis artist Jen Everett will discuss her work in the Elevate exhibition at 21c Museum Hotel St. Louis, joined by artist-scholar Dr. Blair Ebony Smith. The conversation will focus on themes of Black interiority, memory, archives, deep listening, sound, and collaboration, followed by an audience Q&A. The event takes place on April 26, 2026, from 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM.

Museum Rietberg A Kind of Paradise Reframes Colonial Photography Narratives

The Museum Rietberg in Zürich has opened the exhibition 'A Kind of Paradise,' which critically reexamines colonial-era photography through the work of 20 contemporary artists from the global diaspora. The show is structured into four thematic sections—Shapeshifters, Confrontation, Care, and In the Photo Fantastic—and transforms archival images from tools of colonial power into sites of reinterpretation and resistance.

Printmaker creates poster for Fort Wayne Ballet show; exhibition set for Fort Wayne Museum of Art

Renowned American printmaker Chuck Sperry has collaborated with the Fort Wayne Ballet to create a limited-edition poster for their upcoming production of "A Midsummer Night’s Dream." This partnership coincides with the announcement of Sperry’s solo exhibition, "Archetypes," which is scheduled to open at the Fort Wayne Museum of Art on August 25. The exhibition will showcase over 100 wooden panels depicting the Greek Muses, all of which will be inducted into the museum’s permanent collection as part of the Chuck Sperry Archive.

Gallery: Finnish street artist EGS opens Estonian-inspired exhibition

Finnish street artist EGS has launched a comprehensive solo exhibition at the Poco Pop Art Museum in Tallinn, Estonia. The showcase features a diverse array of media including paintings, glass sculptures, and site-specific installations that document the artist's three-decade relationship with the city's urban landscape. A central highlight is a collaborative series of hand-painted ceramic plates created with Estonian artist Viktor Gurov, paying homage to the historic Tallinn ceramics factory in Kopli where EGS painted for 15 years.

Adam Art Gallery Autumn Exhibition Focuses On The Voice - Scoop

Te Pātaka Toi Adam Art Gallery has announced its autumn exhibition, "Peal the Bells," featuring five projects that explore the human voice as a medium for collective action, lament, and political critique. The group show includes paintings, sonic installations, and moving image works by artists Noor Abed, Anoushka Akel, Qianye and Qianhe Lin, Maree Sheehan, and Mo H. Zareei. The exhibition investigates how speech and listening function in an era of digital chatter and bureaucratic evasion, highlighting the voice as a vital index of contemporary social dynamics.